mall force to continue the blockade of the
city, marched with the remainder of his troops to assail the Austrian
general. They soon met, and fought for some hours as fiercely as mortals
can fight. The slaughter on both sides was awful. At length the fortune
of war turned in favor of the Austrians, though they laid down nine
thousand husbands, fathers, sons, in bloody death, as the price of the
victory. Frederic was almost frantic with grief and rage as he saw his
proud battalions melting away before the batteries of the foe. Six times
his cavalry charged with the utmost impetuosity, and six times they were
as fiercely repulsed. Frederic was finally compelled to withdraw,
leaving fourteen thousand of his troops either slain or prisoners.
Twenty-two Prussian standards and forty-three pieces of artillery were
taken by the Austrians.

The tidings of this victory elated Maria Theresa almost to delirium.
Feasts were given, medals struck, presents given, and the whole empire
blazed with illuminations, and rang with all the voices of joy. The
queen even condescended to call in person upon the Countess Daun to
congratulate her upon the great victory attained by her husband. She
instituted, on the occasion, a new military order of merit, called the
order of Maria Theresa. Count Daun and his most illustrious officers
were honored with the first positions in this new order of knighthood.

The Prussians were compelled to raise the siege of Prague, and to
retreat with precipitation. Bohemia was speedily evacuated by the
Prussian troops. The queen was now determined to crush Frederic
entirely, so that he might never rise again. His kingdom was to be taken
from him, carved up, and apportioned out between Austria, Sweden, Poland
and Russia.

The Prussians retreated, in a broken band of but twenty-five thousand
men, into the heart of Silesia, to Breslau, its beautiful and strongly
fortified capital. This city, situated upon the Oder, at its junction
with the Ohlau, contained a population of nearly eighty thousand. The
fugitive troops sought refuge behind its walls, protected as they were
by batteries of the heaviest artillery. The Austrians, strengthened by
the French, with an army now amounting to ninety thousand, followed
closely on, and with their siege artillery commenced the cannonade of
the city. An awful scene of carnage ensued, in which the Austrians lost
eight thousand men and the Prussians five thousand, when the remnant of